The Monolith (Story Serial Continuation Project)

[Willess12]

@TheJerminator

When would Jovan have met Botar?

Whoops, that’s supposed to be Nuukor (Botar’s replacement) saying Botar’s name.
(I rearranged the order of the names at the last minute to match who was speaking, so that slipped past editing)

@TheJerminator

This means that The Monolith is done, right?

Yep. The next story is probably going to go back to Lewa.

[Rukah]

@Willess12

The next story is probably going to go back to Lewa.

Ooh interesting…

[Huemus]

@Willess12

“Nuukor, one of Botar’s kind.”

Nice try, but everybody knows that Botar’s replacement’s name is Botar’s replacement

[Lesnichiy]

Finished to read this yesterday.
And because life keeps getting in my way, I wasn’t able to write much, but I always wanted to, so here are my thoughts on the whole thing pretty briefly:

• Nice Character/Backstory development for Ivohku, albeit short. Will miss the guy, I kind of liked him=(.
• Always imagined the Star being the same “rusty metal” color as the GSR, and then you described it as that huge red thing and it just blew my mind somehow. As if the Death Star was all stadard Lego Red instead of grey. I probably sound funny.
• Delara is sane again - cool (Also, gee, how many Toa with “someone died/was captured because of me” backstory we have… not a minus to the story, as it all comes together, but a fun fact).
• Good explanation for Inika
• Cool uasge of Atakus’ glowing blades (oh, I am so sure that he has escaped the Star…)
• I see what a pain it is to explain everything that happenned in different stories to every character to keep everyone up to date - you did great.
• Star being sentient is a very elegant way to explain stuff.
• The final destruction of the Star seems a bit forced, but absolutely necesary, because reviving everyone isn’t the way. Probably it makes some sense - just like GSR didn’t totally crash immediately, but was dismantling slowly, the Star survived the impact and was slowly collapsing under its own weight (but for a rather short time, because it is smaller).

@Willess12

“I estimate maybe ten percent – no, less than ten percent of the people made it out,” Ruhko said.

• So sad =(, but the number seems kinda belivable and story-compatible.
  Maybe they will find someone in the debris?
• It’s great to have even more different groups of characters joining together. 3 (4?) Toa Nuva in one place (and maybe the next story is about Lewa) seems like getting back to a Toa team-specific story, which I kinda miss after several “miscellaneous characters”-oriented books.

Overall, I am just happy that this Project lives and I totally wait for the next book!

[TheJerminator]

@Willess12

Of course it isn’t , [Lesovikk] thought to himself. She’s dead. They all are . But then, so was he, wasn’t he? He’d died and been brought back by this place. That was what that small purple thing had claimed when he’d interrogated her.

I was rereading the full story, and I just realized something: how did Lesovikk come back?

I know that the Red Star teleported him onboard after he died, but the teleport didn’t occur until after the Star crashed, and it wouldn’t automatically revive him. Were there somehow still Kestora operating the revival tech? How did Lesovikk have time to interrogate a Kestora?

Now that I think about it, the same question goes double for Pohatu; the Star didn’t even have time to retrieve his entire mind. How did it make him a completely new body?

EDIT: I’ve put some thought into it, and maybe come up with an answer. Could the above-mentioned revival and body-making machines continue to work automatically without direct input from the Fe-Matoran “brain”, as long as they had instructions?

SECOND, UNRELATED EDIT:

@Willess12

As for the others, since Kestora lacked Heartlights, it was hard to tell without closer inspection

@Willess12

Atakus stared down at the Kestora leader. Her heartlight was still blinking

Is this just an error, or is there something special about Makuta?

[Willess12]

@TheJerminator

I’ve put some thought into it, and maybe come up with an answer. Could the above-mentioned revival and body-making machines continue to work automatically without direct input from the Fe-Matoran “brain”, as long as they had instructions?

It’s not entirely automatic, but yes, the brain was only needed to give the instructions (and to force things to go quicker). Enough Kestora survived the crash (and either weren’t knocked out or re-awoke) to make sure the revival of the two Toa went through, and then one got interrogated by Lesovikk. They were probably confused by the giant impact and the subsequent failure of, well, everything, but since they aren’t “awakened” like the MU inhabitants, they defaulted to their programming and continued doing their jobs as well as they could.

@TheJerminator

Now that I think about it, the same question goes double for Pohatu; the Star didn’t even have time to retrieve his entire mind. How did it make him a completely new body?

The machine that was scanning his mind broke before the scan could be completed. At least one machine that could make a new body was still operational (though it’s probably broken now).

Some clarity on the timeline of events, perhaps:

• Minutes after the Star crash, Pohatu is scanned, and then the Star dies
• Kopaka and co. are able to teleport directly to the Star and get inside fairly easily, but due to the size of the star, it takes them a while to get to where they need to be.
• The TYQ Toa take a few hours to reach the Star. During this time, Lesovikk’s body gets teleported. Lesovikk’s injuries are fairly easy to repair (for the Red Star, at least)
• Pohatu has a new body made during this time. The technology to do so is relatively simple, albeit more time-consuming than the patch-up job needed for Lesovikk.

---

Now, I’m going to be honest: had I planned this scene ahead of time, I would have had Lesovikk’s body disappear minutes after the Star’s crash (so it would have happened at the end of Hunted). The explanation would have been that the Star’s Brain forced the teleportation to happen immediately, instead of waiting a couple hours. This would have given Lesovikk plenty of time to be revived and interrogate a Kestora. However, when I wrote the last chapter of Hunted, I didn’t know how this story was going to play out (I had a rough idea, but not all the details).

So yes, a lot of things have to work out quickly, and conveniently, for it to play out. I would call this a consequence of splitting the Red Star story in two and having two other stories in the middle that wind up being related. I still made it work (at least, as far as I have figured), just a little more contrived than I would like.

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@TheJerminator

Is this just an error, or is there something special about Makuta?

That is just an error, I forgot I’d said they lacked heartlights. Thanks for pointing that out, I’ve rewritten it slightly.

(also just noticed that I’m inconsistent with my capitalization of heartlight; inconsistent capitalization is unfortunately one of my biggest writing flaws)

[TheJerminator]

@Willess12

I would have had Lesovikk’s body disappear minutes after the Star’s crash

To be honest, this is how I thought it had happened. I never saw any specification for exactly when Lesovikk’s body disappeared, and this made it seem like the Fe-Matoran brain had forced the teleportation to actually happen before dying, rather than just telling the machines to eventually teleport someone who was outside of the Robot:

@Willess12

Teleporters – operational. The Fe-Matoran forced them to skip the typical wait period and retrieve the Toa who’d died on-planet. The way things were going, the Star might not be operational much longer, and he wanted to save as many people as he could.

[Willess12]

Okay, I even reread the scene you’re quoting to make sure I knew what I was talking about, but somehow missed that part. I forgot I wrote that, and apparently didn’t realize the issues it would cause:

That would push the timeline in the opposite way: Orde tells Fierah about Velika, they notice Lesovikk’s death and decide to go to the Star, they set off and Zaria starts making them new weapons, all in a few minutes (like, it’s supposed to be like two or three minutes).

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My compromise is this: there is a minimum amount of time for the teleport to take place, due to some sort of safeguard. The Brain pushed it to the minimum for Lesovikk (maybe like a half hour). This means that all the events at the end of Hunted/the beginning of this story have time to take place, and then Lesovikk has time to be brought back and do stuff. I’ll also go back and add a note about that in the chapter itself.

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I do appreciate you pointing out these inconsistencies. Even when I have to go back and fix stuff, or come up with explanations, it’s still helping me to improve the story.